


Bristling

by mywordsflyup



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, drabble what's a drabble, fighting and angry kissing, or you can kiss a commander and feel ever better, you can kill a dragon and feel pretty good about yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywordsflyup/pseuds/mywordsflyup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You lied to me." </p><p>Lavellan comes home from Crestwood and finds a very angry Cullen in her chambers. </p><p>(Part of the Drabble Prompt Meme)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bristling

As she trudged up the stairs to her chambers, Elaria could feel the dull burn in the muscles of her thighs. It had been four days since their fight with Crestwood’s High Dragon and still every bone in her body ached. The beast had been magnificent – by far the most powerful foe she had slain until now. Even here, back at Skyhold, she thought she could still smell the scorched earth and the metallic scent of hot blood. Perhaps the smell had just burned itself into her skin. Or perhaps she really just needed a proper bath. Preferably in a real tub rather than in a freezing cold lake. She grinned at the memory of Bull’s approving smile as he had helped her climb down from the dead dragon’s back.

“You almost smell like a real Qunari now, boss,” he had told her as she had wiped the dragon’s blood from her forehead before it could get into her eyes.

“And that’s a good thing?” She had laughed, adrenaline still rushing through her veins. It had almost made her feel a bit light-headed.

“Mhm, better than usual at least.” She had tried to nudge him in the side for that but had only managed to slip on the blood that had been pooling at her feet, which had just made him laugh even louder.

Now she couldn’t wait to get the stench of the dragon off of her. She pulled herself up the last few steps and almost stumbled into the room.

She was not alone.

Elaria stopped dead in her tracks, so startled that her stomach clenched in fear before her brain could tell the rest of her body there was no threat. Because she recognized him immediately. He stood by her desk and had turned his back to her, but she would have known those broad shoulders anywhere, even without his signature armor and coat. Those blond curls were also unmistakable of course.

“Cullen,” she said. “Creators, you startled me.” She made a few steps toward him but stopped when he didn’t turn around. Something about the way he leaned on her desk, his shoulders tense, made her feel wary. “Cullen?”

He said something, his voice hoarse and too quiet for her to understand.

She took another step. “What did you say?”

He turned around then and she almost stumbled back at the sight of his face. She had never seen him so angry. His face was pale – all hard lines and clenched jaw. His eyes, usually a soft warm amber, were dark and cold.

“I said, you lied to me,” he said, more clearly now. Every word cut through the air between them like a knife.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said. Because she was tired and aching all over and because she really had no idea what he was talking about. She was, however, acutely aware that he was gripping the edge of her desk hard enough for his knuckles to go white. This was not the welcome she had expected.

“You lied to me,” he repeated once more and let go of the table to pull a piece of paper out of his pocket. Clearing his throat, he smoothed it between his hands before starting to read. “Cullen, please don’t worry. We will wait for reinforcement before attempting to take down the dragon. They should arrive shortly and we will await them at Caer Bronach Keep.” He lowered the letter, her letter, and glared at her. “Does that sound familiar?”

Elaria tried very hard not to sigh or roll her eyes. This was what all this was about? He could not honestly be mad about that.

“Cullen,” she started but was interrupted immediately.

“How long did you wait after writing and sending this? Fifteen minutes? An hour? How long before you decided to go out there and fight a dragon with  _a party of four_?” He was almost yelling now, waving around the letter for emphasis. Alright, apparently he could honestly be mad about this.

“Cullen, this is ridiculous.” It had been the wrong thing to say and she knew it as soon as she saw his face.

“Ridiculous?” he spat. “You lie to me and put yourself in unnecessary danger and me worrying about you is ridiculous?”

She threw her hands in the air in an exasperated gesture. “It wasn’t an unnecessary danger! The dragon was moving closer to the village. Did you expect me to wait until it burned the whole thing to the ground?”

He scoffed and pushed himself off the desk. “I expected you to wait and make a smart decision! Instead of charging into battle without thinking twice!”

Anger bubbled inside of her now. All weariness wiped away by bristling irritation.

“I made a decision. You might not think it was smart but at least I did something.” She made an attempt to walk around him but he stepped in her way. “In case you’ve forgotten, that’s what you put  me in charge for. To make decisions nobody else is willing to make. Sort of comes with the title and the fancy sword,” she hissed and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. He hated when she pulled out sarcasm to her defense. “Decisions concerning the Inquisition. Not dragons.”

“Are you kidding me? Are you saying I should have let these people burn?”

“No, of course not!” Cullen ran his hands through his hair, obviously trying to find the right words. “But if you had died…” He swallowed and looked away – a sudden break in his fury. “If you had died, more people than that would have died eventually. You have a responsibility.”

She had never been this angry with him. Not even in the early days, when they had fought almost daily over taking in Redcliffe’s mages. But now he was talking like she didn’t know her responsibilities. Like she couldn’t feel the weight of all these people counting on her. Like she didn’t lie awake every night, struggling for breath at the thought of it all. She could taste the anger on her tongue like the sharp tang of blood. Mixed with something else. Disappointment, perhaps. Somehow she had thought he would understand. That there was something between them. How silly of her to believe that one kiss meant he would understand her.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about responsibility,” she said and pushed her way past him. “You’re not the one out there. If a situation changes, I have to adjust my decisions. That’s just how it works.” She busied herself with sorting through papers on her desk, just so she didn’t have to look at him. To her absolute horror, she could feel tears pricking at her eyes.

“But are you really the one making these decisions?” he asked and she could hear the sneer in his voice even without seeing his face. She stopped and turned around slowly, not quite sure she had understood him properly.

“What are you saying?” She clenched her fists hard enough for her nails to dig into her palm.

He laughed, but it was a dry, joyless sound. “Oh, come on. The Iron Bull has tried to talk you into dragon hunting for months now. Are you really telling me it’s a coincidence that you take him to Crestwood and the next thing I hear is that you’ve taken on a High Dragon basically by yourself?”

It was her turn to hold on to the edge of the table. She did not trust herself not to punch him in the face otherwise. He must have recognized the fury his words had awoken in her, because something like uncertainty flickered in his eyes.

“Are you serious?!” she yelled. “Do you honestly believe that I can’t make my own decisions? That I would risk everything we have built here without proper cause? That I would risk my life and the lives of my people for fun?”

“I don’t know what to believe! I don’t hear from you when you’re out there! Nothing but a few short lines and even those I can’t trust apparently!” He tossed the crumpled letter on the ground between them. There were red blotches on his cheeks – nothing like the light flush after their first kiss. She could have kicked herself for even drawing up the comparison.

“Perhaps you should ask Cassandra!” Elaria spat. “Since you don’t seem to trust me. Since you seem to have so much more respect for her and her choices. Oh no, wait.” She brought her palm to her forehead in a theatrical gesture. “She was there with me! That’s right. Trusting my decisions.” She glared at him. His mouth was just a straight tight line now. “I wonder why you’re not berating her like this.”

She could see his jaw clenching. “It’s not the same and you know it.”

“Because of this?” She held up her left hand. The anchor in her palm faintly glowing in the late afternoon’s twilight. “Can’t risk losing the only way to seal the rifts, right?”

He furrowed his brow, shaking his head slowly. She could see his anger shifting.

“No, that’s no–”

“Or is it because I’m younger?” she interrupted. “Too inexperienced to trust? You should have thought about that before giving me that title.”

He sighed. “If you would just listen for one second.”

“For what? I think I’ve heard enough. How is it not the same when Cassandra charges at a dragon? Because she did, you know. I saw it.”

“Maker’s breath, would you just stop? You know why it’s not the same!”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest again. “I really don’t, Cullen.” She felt the weariness returning to her in waves. She just wanted him to leave so she could crawl under her covers and cry where nobody would see her. Instead, he came closer. There was something desperate in his eyes. Something that had not been there before.

“Because…” He stopped, clenching and unclenching his fists before rubbing his neck with one hand.

“Just spit it out. It not like yo–”

“Andraste’s tits! It’s because I love you!”

Silence. 

Stunned, painfully long silence.

“Wait, what?”

An utterly mortified expression dawned on his face as soon as the words had left his lips and he started to turn around. Without thinking, she jumped forward and grabbed him by the arm, stopping him.

“You love me?” she asked, still not really believing that he had actually said those words. He swallowed and when he spoke his voice sounded strangely small – not at all like it belonged to the towering man in front of her. But there was no uncertainty in it.

“I do,” he said.

The world was spinning around her and Elaria grabbed on more tightly to his arm to steady herself. Of all things he could have said, she never would have suspected this. Never would have hoped for this…

“So all of this.” She made an all-encompassing hand gesture. “It’s all because… you were worried about me?”

He made a move as if to touch her but caught himself at the last second – his hand halting just inches from hers. “The thought of you… Of losing you, it’s too much. I could not bear it.”

She let out a deep breath. There was a tiny ball of giddiness somewhere in the swirling mass of anger she felt. “That still doesn’t give you the right to say these things to me,” she said. “You can’t talk to me like that just because you worry. Just because you love me. You don’t see me doing that and you get yourself into dangerous situations all the time. The lyrium alone…”

She stopped herself when she felt his hand on hers. When she looked up his eyes were wide.

“Are you saying you love me too?” he asked, a little breathless. He looked so surprised, she almost laughed out loud.

“What?”

“Just now. What you just said. It almost sounded like you loved me too.”

She retraced her words in her mind. Color rose in her cheeks as she realized he was right. “Well, I guess…” She sighed. “Of course I do, you blighted idi–”

He swallowed the rest of her sentence as his lips captured hers. This wasn’t like their last kiss. This was hungry, urgent. His hands wandered to her hips and he drove her back until her butt hit the edge of her desk. She let out a small gasp, enough for him to slid his tongue past her lips. When it stroked against her own, she could feel her resolve starting to melt. And when he circled his arms around her waist and positioned his knee between her legs, her stomach clenched for a completely different reason than anger. She held on to the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, drawing a pleased sound from him that made her weak in the knees. She had not realized how much she had missed this. The taste of him. The feeling of his large hands on the small of her back. The rush of adrenaline in her blood, so much more intense than when she had killed that dragon.

With a gasp, she pushed him away. His eyes were glazed over for a moment, dark with desire. Then they focused on her and he cocked an eyebrow.

“You don’t want this?” he asked, his voice strained.

“I do. But I want you to know that I’m still angry.” She bit her bottom lip. She was still clutching his shirt in her hands and had to fight the urge to run her thumb over the collarbone she felt underneath. She swallowed hard. “I get that you are worried but you can’t talk to me like that. I’m not some fragile doll.”

“I know,” he said and tried to close the distance between them but she held him back.

“Then act like it. I need you to trust me when I make decisions like that. Because I don’t make them lightly.”

He sighed and lifted one hand from her hip to rub the back of his neck again, a move she knew well by now. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I got carried away. Those things I said… they were unjust.”

“Yes, they were.” She could feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and she tried her best to keep a straight face. She wanted him to know how serious she was. But then he looked at her and smirked. Creators, he actually smirked.

“Let me make it up to you,” he growled and leaned back in. She let him this time. And when his lips trailed along the slope of her jaw, she laced her fingers in his soft hair and sighed.

“I hope you don’t mind the dragon smell,” she said breathlessly as he nibbled on the skin of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She could feel his lips curling into a smile.

“How about I draw a bath for you?  _Really_  make it up to you?”

He didn’t have to ask twice.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also follow my [tumblr](http://damnable-rogue.tumblr.com) if you're interested.


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